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Alcatel IDOL 4S Revisited: The LAST Flagship Windows Phone

There's an interesting video by Ho Young Won over on YouTube, with the headline above. In it, he 'goes back' to Windows 10 Mobile today, at the end of 2018, but this time with the highest specced consumer Windows 10 Mobile phone, the Alcatel IDOL 4S (released in Europe as the IDOL 4 Pro), wondering how the better build, faster processor, greater RAM, and multimedia chops would sway his use away from Android.

As usual, click through and/or maximise the video for best results.

There's a lot here that you'll agree with, he hits most nails well and truly on their head, and ends up giving his reasons why he just couldn't live with Windows 10 Mobile today.

The main one being that some banks now refuse to recognise Edge as secure enough (which I think is unfair of them). I've been over this ground before though - there's the whole issue of supporting IoT and mobile payments too. Windows 10 Mobile remains 'functionally complete' for 2016, the year of the IDOL 4S's launch, but the OS and its browser haven't really come far since. Sadly.

Although I sympathise with the whole banking issue, for me the IDOL 4 Pro remains a 'secondary' phone because of its very average camera. While the Lumia 950 XL, with its excellent camera, has a rubbish mono speaker and average headphone output. Ideally, the best of both devices in 'one' would do (for me) but that will have to remain a pipe dream*.